Dear 2023,

Last year I asked on my knees for one more trip around the sun and I’ve emerged as if I’ve spent the year laying in clover, arms open to the sky  

and while I laid there in stillness, all that I needed found me.

All that I needed came and laid down beside me and all that I needed stayed with me while I started over
wiser and braver and with more softness
More “let’s sleep a little longer” more “you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to”
Less harshness, more softness.

Dear 2023,

Teach me nothing is permanent.

Teach me to rise each morning with the pure fascination of the way my breath sounds and how my body feels and who I am that day- teach me to sit with her and stare into her eyes and ask her “what do you need?”

Teach me to hold others how they need to be held, not how I want to hold them. To treat them as newborns, tender and with gratitude. Let me hold myself the same way.

Let me speak all that is in my heart
Let me stare at my darkness and invite her in for tea, ask her what she’s afraid of.

Dear 2023

Engulf me in new beginnings and the gift of stepping into the arms of others and trusting there is good inside them too

I have tended to the garden inside of me and this year I will sit in the shade of all that I have grown, wild and free.

We are not taught  
not everyone is going to want to go on the journey with you,
and there is grief in that
the melancholy that comes with wishing you could bring everyone that matters along on the road to becoming
Of loving ourselves fiercely
Being wild and kind

Sharing the simplicity in silence and marvelling at the resilience of our hearts, of what we’re living for

Not everyone can see so far

But you can
and you will leave prints in the earth for those who are wondering “can I follow too?”

Outside of the confines of who we are told to be

Who will we dare to become?

Show me choosing the choice that leads me back to my heart

Show me moulting my skin every single spring every time I wash my hair because we are beings made of water and water, by nature, is in motion


No wonder I am most alive when my heart is pounding my soul stretching lungs full of sea air

Show me the beauty of living a thousand lives in one breath

Show me we are made for this life

It is nights like this
When we recite in meticulous detail a moment in time when our minds were intertwined, exactly 4745 days ago…
my heart says it was yesterday
Because what is time, really,  to a heart?

My bones whisper to me that in a parallel universe
it is us who grow old together
Attached at the hip while we stare at the stars
Holding joy in our hands

I am learning that slow is good
Slow is growing
You do not have to run to reach the sky
The sky will come to you when you are ready

The trees know this
The rain too
Rivers and their curves aren’t created in an afternoon
Breathe slow ache slow fall in love slowly and with purpose for this is
how you hold
time in your hands

I am learning  
I am magic
I am a force to be reckoned
I am the reckoning
I am free I am running wild like fire I am fire
I am heartache and yearning held together by bravery
I am brighter than my darkness
I am light I am light

We are gathered here today for  the part of me who repeats over and over “not good enough”
Today is the day I burn the part that thinks it’s only worth doing if it’s perfect
It’s only worth saying if it gets praise it’s only worth living if it’s achieving
Today is the day this version of me dies

And isn’t it beautiful
Isn’t it heartbreaking
The seeds I grew inside myself, some of them rotten
What a gift
what a tragedy

Today is the funeral.
Today I rise.

Dear 2022,

I have arrived
bare and alive
flawed and unruly

wrapped in lavender
Last year I held joy in my palms
washed my face in it
Last year I showered in eucalyptus
I let my hair grow past my hips
Painted my toes with honey to show the bees they’re welcome here

Last year I began by asking for kindness and comfort and love and I learned I didn’t need to ask the sky

I can create all these things for myself
I can plant them and nurture them
I can nurture me and love me and pour sunshine over me

So 2022
Here I am
Stepping into you
Ready to be planted
I am here with open arms
Asking for nothing
Except for one more trip around the sun

(To your inner child)

Tell her she needn’t weather the storm on her own this time

Wrap her in lavender and sing to her and dress her in courage. Tell her she is as powerful as her wildest dreams.

Let her rest in your arms,
Watch the sunrise together.
Accompany her grief, comb the knots out of her hair
Let her run barefoot in the dirt with no consequence

Write her love letters, mail the ones she wrote for those who were incapable of receiving
Burn the ones where she blamed herself.

“Too much too wild too selfish too human too challenging too loud too loving too anguished”

Burn it all, let her hold the match so she understands she is the master of her fate.

Hold her tiny hand in yours until she dissipates
Absorbed into the roots of your inner garden;

She is owed a place there, but she will no longer overshadow the other wildflowers.

I always wanted to walk through fire
But now that I’m here
Surrounded in flames

Soul burning

I don’t want to walk
I want to dance

I haven’t
Traced your ear enough with my fingertips to have it memorized
Can’t quite remember the imprints of your hands
How your skin feels on my skin
What your breath sounds like when you soften

But you’re beginning to feel familiar  

And I know one day I will know you and all this
Like the sun knows the sky

I want to come home and the lights are on because you’re curled up in the living room and filling the air with your laughter

I want it to be warm when I step in the door because you cranked up the heat after your afternoon walk in the snow.

I want to step over your shoes you forgot to put away

Toss away your sweater you left beside you on the couch

And lift your arms over my shoulders and nestle into your neck.

I want to come back to a home
Not a house.

I want to come back to light and not darkness

Want to come back to hear your voice not my own breath.

But I don’t know who you are yet
Or where you are yet
Until then I’ll leave the lights on
And I hope you come home soon.

Like a forest that sets itself on fire to start over

I will uproot the parts of myself that no longer serve me so I
can emerge wiser brighter lighter

and I will be a better home for myself and the garden that I have been tending to
That is gently blooming inside of me

I wept
Wishing I’d stopped to witness the leaves
In their glory
Before they fell at my feet

I want you to remember that no matter how far away it seems or how long it has been since you were embraced by the sun

That the sun will always choose the very moment you need its light most
To pierce through even the darkest clouds
To remind you
That you are alive 🌱
You are an accumulation of its rays and its tears and its joy and its rage and you wear it all so beautifully

And I want you to remember
That a cloud is born to be temporary

But the sun
The sun is infinite
And it belongs to you ☀️

I whispered to my body
“you are safe with me”

Let me fall in love
Over and over
Until my heart is dripping
And bare

Do I dare to cross
the street into your arms or
Do I wave instead

Dear one,

Write me when your legs have tired from wherever you’re running to

I sense that you are running simply because you were born running and
I can only imagine from what your eyes told me you want to get off this carnival ride but you never learned how and

I know you know that stillness is your friend if you only tried because
that must be why you asked me to hold you with my whole body and that’s why your soul uncurled its fists and
Maybe it’s all in my head but
I think you wanted to lay there forever so

write to me when you’re tired of running and

Come home to me.              


A letter to your heart;
(that I’ll never deliver)

Thought I had it all
Figured out but then you crashed
Into my life and

This time I lay my head down on the bed instead of chasing him out the door
This time I sit with my darkest parts and listen to them and love them and give them light and
It is they who needed the company, they’re the ones who wanted to run
Not me
Not anymore

May you persevere in matters of your heart
Immerse yourself in what you need to feel alive

May you press onwards even when you’d rather sink and

May you grow towards the sky just like the flowers you find that root themselves in the most precarious places but still manage to find the sun

Nothing more lonely
Than giving someone your heart
And they drift away

I embarked on a journey to ask myself this question for 30 days;

What filled me with enthusiasm today?

Relishing in the joy that I am able to move my body run and jump and stretch and climb and love, I am fuelled by the thought these motions could leave me at any moment

Being powerful in the face of fear filled me with enthusiasm
Leading others, speaking for those who couldn’t

I was filled with enthusiasm when I saw her
She makes me feel at home and alive and free and joyous and proud of her

Because I remember when she saw me when others walked by
She stayed
She listened
She led me out of the dark

And him
He is calm
He is resilient
Patient with me and loving and I want hear about what he thinks the clouds look like and hold his hand in silence and

And I was filled with enthusiasm when I let the sun warm my skin and the flowers oh the flowers,  what did we do to deserve them
The ones that persistently press through the concrete for no one but themselves

I was filled with enthusiasm when I realized that this
this is it

I used to write poems about being incapable of being fulfilled and alive and I determined
“I will never be full”

But this is it
Here I am
Filled
with more than I could ever have imagined

10 years have passed and I have been held by others
But none held my heart like you

My rib cage pressed against the railing
Trying to catch the dandelion seeds as they pass
When I look over at you you’re laughing at my infatuation with them
I almost admit I love you
Maybe I will
when the dandelions are flowers again

Dear heavy heart
you are not a burden.

Let me adorn you with a crown made of your triumphs so you can carry them with you

Let us honour your darkest parts
They deserve to see light too

Dear heavy heart
Despite being shattered over and over
You only become more glorious

Thank you for pumping blood through my veins like the mountain streams flood rivers to fill up oceans
You are oceans

Infinite powerful and all consuming
You are inevitable to this story

My dearest heavy heart;
Keep going.

Listen to the sky
For who knows better
That we need both the dark and the light
To see clearly

She was my shelter;

But she was also the storm

Here’s to taking up space
To not shrinking for the benefit of others
For speaking your mind even when your voice shakes
To starting over courageously with each sunrise
To holding hands with your shadows,
And letting them go

Here’s to allowing yourself to make mistakes
and allowing yourself to be great 🌻

Here’s to you
Here’s to you
To you

“You are infinite”
I whisper to the flower petals
They get lonely, too.

Dear 2021,

Please be gentle with my heart
Show me how to love bigger and often
Teach me how to open my chest to the sun and let it dance within my ribcage
Let me run wild
In solitude and in company
Let me dream of wildflowers, ones that grow through the cracks
I want to be like them, courageous and triumphant

Dear 2021,
Show me the road back to myself
Fall in love with the journey
Fall in love with me
Wrap me up in your arms, and whisper to me
You are whole, you are worthy, you are wildflowers you are
Breathtaking.
Dearest 2021, I am ready
To grow another year wiser.
“Fingertips trembling, though they may be.”

When your bones are tired
And your heart is weary
Eyelids heavy

Do you pause to remember what the grass feels like between your toes?
To remind yourself of the summers when you had hours to spend dancing in the sun
Observing an ants journey across the sidewalk
You would measure the time passing by watching the clouds
The shapes morphing slow enough you couldn’t see, but you’d blink and then they’d be different
Blink and it’s all different

Summer turns into fall
I blinked and you became a stranger
Your eyes are familiar but your insides are different like the weather

The flowers come and go
I managed to bring some of them inside before the winter
Gathered them up with the memories of you from when we were young and careless
When we cared more
About giving than not being hurt

This year taught me

You're more resilient than you think
that there is comfort and joy in solitude

hugs are like honey
pure
simple
valuable

I learned you can find happiness where you least expect it

That the only way out is through

there are more outreached, helping hands than you think

how grand it is
to simply be
toes dipped in the river
sunset kissing your forehead
trusting it will rise again
Trusting this is not the end

To the daughters who were born without a safe haven

To the mothers who baptized their daughters not in holy water
but in their heartache

To the daughter who raised her mother first
then herself

To the mother who thought being a mother would save her
to the daughter who taught her mother through her existence alone she could never make her whole

to the daughters who tried to make her whole anyway

to the mothers and daughters who resent each other and
don't know why

To the daughter who struggles to decide
between pleasing her mother
and pleasing herself

to the daughter who finally learns what it feels like
to choose herself
to the mother that does the same

to the mothers and daughters who run from unconditional love because they've never known the feeling

may you find peace
forgiveness
for yourself and for her
patience
resilience
acceptance

And I learned that my breath
Will continue to flow
inhales and exhales between my lips
Just like the ebbs and flows of a riverbed

My belly rises and falls
Inhales
Exhales
As if to illustrate that beginning over and over
Is not a bad thing
Inhale after inhale is inevitable
Exhales, like failures, serve a purpose
To begin again
Over and over
To begin again.

Under the current circumstances
I am finding certain moments in time to bring tears to my eyes
Out of sheer gratitude for their existence
I am determined to soak each up
absorb them through my skin
carry them with me
I cling to them so I do not take them for granted ever again

An embrace
a familiar face in real life
not on a screen
birds chirping
overhearing a conversation as strangers pass you on the sidewalk
a quick chat with the barista
catching someones eye in the park
the park
the freedom to explore with no restrictions
washing your hands before a meal to be polite
and not to stay alive

feeling safe

my tears gather to remind me that I am
I continue to be  
painfully gratefully joyously alive
in spite of it all

The feeling when I jump off the riverbed and for one brief moment I am weightless, suspended before I submerge into the water

When I’m about to open a door to a friends house filled with people. The world goes silent while I reach for the doorknob

The pause I take before I’m about to say something that will change
everything

The moment when I see someone I love who I haven’t seen for a long time

When I realize I’m about to achieve something I’ve worked so hard for

When I have to make a decision between two different paths

When I know I’m approaching the time to choose, but I walk between the two
One foot in each possible decision for a long time
Relishing in my indecision

The moment when tears well in my eyelids, the pause before they fall down my cheeks
They don’t fall until I let them

The time that passes between when you realize they don’t love you anymore, but they haven’t told you yet

When I’m about to bite into my favourite decadent cake, one satisfying bite dances in front of my lips before I devour. When you can taste it before you’ve even started

The pause between when I turn on the shower and the water actually starts falling onto my skin

Consciously living between who I am and who I see I can be
She’s so clear in my mind

The moment I reach for someone’s hand

The coat I have for in between seasons

When I receive bad news
And I feel nothing
Before I feel everything

Collecting memories like seashells
I clasp them in my hand
Press my hand to my heart
The shells will last longer than this

Put them in a jar by the door
To remind us our time was plentiful like the night sky plastered in stars
The kind of view you can only see from the middle of the forest
Cocooned between the green canopies

An infinite depth
From which we were born
And where we will return

Despite my best intentions to wish you unwell
My mind is wrapped up in being forgiving and understanding and “ive been there too”

I find myself
Hoping your day passed with ease and grace. And I hope you were kind to yourself today

Did you think about us
This time last year
Drunk on wine and the feeling we’d known each other in another life

Sometimes I play a tape in my head of what I wish your mouth would say

“I choose you”
Over and over
“I choose you”

I’m building a home for myself
For myself

Behind me lay a string of temporary shelters I found in others
In things
In feelings
In reactions

I’m building a home for myself not for you but for my heart and my peace and my songs
For my stillness my restlessness my demons and my passions
For my mother and her mother and her mother
My mothers
Who spent time building and building rows of homes for lost souls
Never pausing to take shelter for themselves

I’m building a home for myself within my own walls at my own pace
Patched together with patience and gratitude and the pure joy I feel that I have survived it all.

Even if it takes years if it takes tears if it takes giving up and starting over

I will build my walls to make boundaries and to set intention and those who belong will enter peacefully and honestly and without selfishness

I will build a home to love myself to come home to to live in with my declarations of knowing my worth and knowing my gifts and knowing I am safe I am safe in myself

If I could have one last conversation with you
A final day in the sunshine
I'd tell you I love you
for the first time
and the last.

If there's one more thing I could teach you
It would be that the way you're living
armoured
alone
unforgiving
is no way to live.

But I'd say it in my head, send it through my exhales in the hopes it subconsciously reaches your ears,
so as not to ruin the present moment.

We're sitting in silence
knees touching
bodies leaning into each other so it all hurts less

You'd stroke my eyelashes as they flutter with your fingertips
I can't remember what your laugh sounds like anymore

I can picture you laughing, but it's like a silent movie

But I remember how your voice sounds as it cracks through your tears
And I can see your restlessness
even with my eyes open.

I can feel your sadness
Its weight I can still see imprinted on my love seat

If I could tell you one more story about myself,
To the version of you that was still open
like a sunflower
so willing to receive

I would tell you that I'm tired of being scared
done with hiding my need to be protected
so tired of staying up all night guarding my own heart.

I may require affection and love more than you're used to giving
but you have seen my love move mountains for free
and I need just once for someone to do the same for me.

If I could meet you for the first time
one last time

I would share with you that I see your fears and I honour them
sooner than I did before.

I'd tell you
you're safe here

I would believe who you said you were the first time.

If I were to say goodbye to you again
a do-over
an un-doing

I would sit fully in that moment with you
and thank you for your honesty
forgive you for your shortcomings

Accepting that you never really unpacked your bags

Even though in my mind,
we had already grown old together.

Tentatively listen for the rise and fall of your belly to ensure your breaths are with ease

Trace the edges of your ear in moments of agitation, hoping your nerve endings will hear my fingertips and change their tune

Rub your feet when your heart is exhausted and your eyes are weary
Ensuring to not miss a single corner

Clear room on my bookshelf for your frustrations, find moments to read them together

Reminding you of your intricacies
While you sleep I whisper your journey in your ear
So you realize how far you’ve come

Encourage your curiosities
Give them room to remember who they are

I pick you wildflowers
An audience for your secrets

And my darling
If you are drawn to a new adventure
I will guide you to the edge of the road less traveled
Wave until you merge with the landscape

a way that I love you

You are worthy.

     You are whole.

            You are loved.

When I look in the mirror it's like all I can see are my glaring flaws
The wild broken strands of my hair refusing to be tamed
The blemish that never ceases to rear its head
My belly that is always a little too round if only it could just be less
My thighs that rub together
My arms that defy my womanly existence because no woman's arms are that hairy
The purple sweeps underneath my eyes
That people always comment on when I have been brave enough to not cover them in makeup

When I look in the mirror
It's a war with myself

A war that has waged a lifetime
I'm tired
And the fighting has left my battleground filled with mud where did the flowers go
We're not born like this
Where did I get the notion that my value lies on my surface and not below it?

When I look in the mirror
Instead of fighting
I want to plant a garden
Wildflowers in my ears as colourful as my thoughts
Dandelions so I can make infinite wishes when they turn to seed over and over and
A patch of roses so their thorns remind me  of my heartache
Tulips for my resilience
Vegetables!
To feed my belly that I starved  
Let them nurture my bones unconditionally
Let my garden bring dragon flies
So I'm reminded that this world has been here longer than me and it will remain despite a thousand winters

I look in the mirror  
My hands caked in dirt
In all my imperfect glory
The roots soak up my tears
I am finally home from the war

It's difficult to decipher your declarations
The dance in your hips
Does not match the words on your lips
There's fire in the tips of your fingers
Your touch is warm but your eyes are cold
You're determined to warm your bones at night
But you shudder in the middle of summer

My darling
Rest your head in the sand
Let it bear the weight of your sadness
Let the ocean catch your tears
For the ocean is their home

Brush your curls with courage
Let your intuition see the sunrise
Instead of midnight
Speak love songs to your sins
Exhale your apprehensions
Let your ears hear the truth
You are enough to withstand centuries
Accept the love that is extended to you
Even warriors do not meet triumph alone

Bathe in your resolutions
The ones carved into your heart
Rest under the branches once and a while
And my love
When your hips want to dance
Let them dance

In 2019,
I want more.

Want more sunrises
More rolling out of bed with a purpose

More afternoons curled in a love seat

I want a garden
inside me and in my backyard

More friends
More nuzzles from dogs

More oceans

More allowance to make mistakes
After all, you were brave enough to try.

More stillness
More belly laughs
More love letters

More sway in my hips
Cool breeze on my lips

More looking in the mirror to see my smile
not the width of my thighs

More finding shapes in the clouds

More moments that leave me breathless

More life
All the painfully messy beautifully chaotic morsels
dripping from my chin

In 2019,
I want more.

Sunshine drips from my chin
Wipe the sunrise from the corners of my eyes
Dew rolls down my spine as I stand
Wave goodbye to the last slivers of dusk

How far I have travelled
To come home to myself.

how beautiful and painful the process
of consciously
purposefully
shedding the parts of yourself that you have outgrown

How rewarding it is
To take even one step closer
To who you know you can be